📌 Engineering Crops, Distorting Trade!

(from the archives)

When technological change has the potential to put the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people at risk, it must be regulated differently from other products in a free market. Blindly promoting innovation, as is now being done with genetically engineered crops, is self-defeating, writes Suman Sahai.

Many crops of developing countries have a global value because of the special chemical compounds they contain like aromatic or other oils. In recent years, however, biotechnology and agribusiness companies have found ways of obtaining some of these valuable compounds through genetically engineered (GE) crops. As a result, genetic engineering is providing alternative ways for developed societies to procure commodities that have traditionally been supplied by developing countries. Naturally, the shift in trading patterns threatens the economic base of farmers who have traditionally grown the crops from which these products were made.

The production of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) from corn, a major GE crop bred for industrial applications like this, has undermined sugar prices and distorted sugar markets for cane sugar producers of developing countries like India. Coconut is another victim of genetic engineering. Coconut provides high value oil used for edible and for industrial purposes. The main advantage of this oil is the high lauric acid that it contains. The US alone imports upwards of US$ 350 million worth of coconut and palm oil annually. Now genetic engineering is creating GE canola to produce the same special high lauric acid oil as coconut. This research will have highly negative economic implications for farmers in coconut producing regions.

Technology alone is not responsible; these changes are made possible by massive agricultural subsidies in the developed world for corporate farming. These are a source of grave distortion in international agricultural trade, accelerating the changes created by new technologies.

Calgene has produced a high lauric acid rapeseed by using genes from the California Bay tree. This rapeseed will ultimately displace the coconut and palm kernel oil and deprive Asian farmers of revenues. The argument that coconut farmers could nevertheless derive some income from other coconut products is weak - there are great difficulties that developing country farmers confront in finding new markets for their crops. The loss of the coconut oil income, the farmers’ principal revenue opportunity in certain regions, will inflict severe economic hardship.

Intellectual Property Rights

Access to GE technology is largely impeded by the stringent IPRs that surround it. Most of the basic technologies of genetic engineering are patented and the larger companies own these patents. These companies are reluctant to license many technologies to developing country organisations at an affordable cost. Patent laws do not require them to do so, so they are not obliged to grant any licenses if they prefer to control the technology themselves. Patent holders often refuse to license patents for key technologies to scientists and even to public sector institutions. Also, companies often seek patents not necessarily to conduct research themselves but to prevent research in areas that would threaten their monopolies. It is of concern that public research institutions are also getting into the patenting of plant technologies and research tools, further restricting access to genetic material and research data that are needed to cross complement research efforts.

Patents with an excessively broad claim are becoming increasingly problematic. They violate the ethical intent of patent law, which is to balance private gain with public good, while leaving the way open for further innovation. Excessively broad claims like the one granted to Monsanto on ‘all types of genetic transformation in all varieties of soybean’ (European Patent Number 301,749), are contrary to the original intention of patent law. They are monopoly instruments restricting useful research and therefore diminishing social welfare

Pressure back on using GURT technology

The use of Gene Use Restricting Technology (GURT), popularly known as the ‘terminator’ technology’, is being discussed again. The US under the Indo-US deal on agriculture is also putting pressure to change the IPR regime and labeling and other provisions for GE crops. GURT is in fact banned in India under the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Act, 2001, but there is a lot of pressure globally including at the Biosafety Protocol meeting in Curitiba this year.

It has historically been well understood that farmers own not just the crops they harvest in one season, but the seeds needed to continue their occupation as well. But with the arrival of GURT, this understanding is put at risk. The technology - which allows farmers to grow only one crop from the seeds they purchase, but does not allow the farmer to save viable seed from his crop for the next sowing - was kept in cold storage after widespread outrage at its anti-farmer focus but it is back on the corporate agenda and awaiting adoption. GURT is an example of how genetic engineering has been used not to improve a crop or bring benefits to farmers but solely to enhance the control of the seed company over the variety they have bred.

GURT is the most stringent form of intellectual property rights, where the scientific process, not the legal, has been used to give the seed company complete control. The terminator technology obviates the patent system in establishing the monopoly of the seed company on the new seed.

In the GURT technology two gene systems have been brought together to produce seeds with an in built mechanism that aborts development of the embryo so that germination can not take place and the seed is rendered sterile. The self -destructing seeds are actually hybrids produced by hybridising two transgenic plants, each containing one of the two gene systems. To control the induction sterility, a chemical switch has been built in. Soaking the seeds in a chemical like tetracycline can activate this switch. Once the tetracycline soaks into the seed tissue, it switches on one of the gene systems, which sets in motion the chemical process, which will abort the embryo. So in practice, the seed company can produce as much of the seed as they want and just before selling it to the farmer, they can treat the seeds with tetracycline to switch on the sterility inducing gene system.

When technological change has the potential to put the livelihood or other interests of hundreds of millions of people at risk, it must be regulated differently from other products in a free market. While promoting innovation is a valuable goal for modern economies, such innovation would be self-defeating if it resulted in social or economic upheaval. This is precisely the risk now posed by genetically engineered crops.

This article appeared in India Together on 24 Sept 2006 -https://indiatogether.org/getech-agriculture/ 

📌 Biotech policy : task force report

(from the archives)

Suman Sahai comments on the recently released report of Task Force on Biotechnology policy.

The Centre’s Department of Agriculture & Cooperation had appointed a Task Force in May 2003 to examine Agbiotechnology and make recommendations for its implementation. The body headed by Dr. M S Swaminathan was given the following mandate: to formulate a long-term policy on applications of biotechnology in agriculture; make suggestions for harmonizing decision making; recommend a role for the Agriculture Ministry and generate awareness.

Released earlier this year, the importance of the recommendations of the Task Force lies in the fact that this is the first effort to formulate a policy. Civil society organizations have been frustrated in the past by the refusal of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) to engage in any dialogue on public concerns or be receptive to any suggestions for improving a clearly unsatisfactory system. The former head of DBT is famously on record for doggedly insisting that India did not need a biotechnology policy when all around her, from the most vocal protagonists to the most determined opponents, were demanding a national policy.

The task force process itself was somewhat participatory. NGOs, industry, academics and other stakeholders were consulted. The time frame was 3 months which was a limitation. The consultations were not as wide as I have seen for some other processes. The terms of reference of the task force did not include debate on the GM controversy itself, but rather how to improve the efficiency of Agbiotech. That was the limited mandate of the body.

One of the report’s basic recommendations is that the national policy should seek the ‘economic well-being of farm families, food security of the nation, health security of the consumer, protection of the environment and the security of our national and international trade’. If the recommendations of this Task Force are upheld, no policy implementation can deviate from these goals.

The report highlights the need to link transgenic research in India to the international market. Transgenic research should not be done on crops that we sell in the international market, like soybean, Basmati rice and Darjeeling tea. Readers will recall the hare brained schemes of the DBT to promote Bt Basmati and introduce the beta-carotene construct of Golden Rice into Basmati rice. Nobody seemed to be thinking that we are exporters of Basmati (and other) rice as well as soybean (to special niche markets) and that our major trading partners are all rejecting GM foods. So who would buy our Bt Basmati or our GM Soya?

The report is critical of the prevailing gung-ho climate when any proposal for research on a GM crop, however nonsensical the goal, is likely to get sanctioned, often at the cost of conventional research which is more likely to yield results of relevance. It recommends that all alternatives to GM technology should be examined and the GM route used only when other options are not available. There is an explicit injunction against using negative GM traits like herbicide tolerance that can reduce employment (by taking away the opportunity to earn wages by weeding) and impinge on rural livelihoods (by destroying vegetation that is used as nutritious leafy greens or fodder to support livestock).

The report says that our policy on transgenics should be sensitive to biodiversity conservation and the socio-economic context of our composite agrarian system. In other words, small farmer interests have to be protected. In recommending the breeding of both varieties and hybrids and supporting apomixis (asexual reproduction through seeds) as a strategy, the recommendation is clearly in favour of the farmers’ right to save seed from previous harvests.

The recommendation that Centres of Origin and diversity like the Jeypore tract for rice must be protected, is an important one. However the proposed mechanism for earmarking GM and non-GM zones does not appear to be feasible. The task force also did not look the implications of non-GM food preferences developing in the Indian domestic market in the same way that it has developed in the export markers. As a result it ends up advocating a policy of developing non-GM crops for export, but permitting GM crops for domestic consumers. If a country like India would do this, the cost of segregation would be high and in my opinion, segregation of GM and non-GM is practically impossible in India.

For example, if the cultivation of GM rice is permitted in certain areas but not in the diversity rich areas of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, there is no way of preventing GM rice landing up there. Foreign genes in that case are bound to move to wild relatives of rice in its centre of origin. We have seen the speed with which the illegal Bt cotton originally put out by Navbharat seed company has spread to almost all cotton growing areas, despite the fact that its planting is illegal. Similarly, contamination of native corn in Mexico has taken place inspite of the ban on the cultivation of GM corn in the country. Zoning or segregation is unlikely to work. The only way of protecting native germplasm from foreign genes with likely negative impacts is to disallow the GM version of that particular crop.

I have a disagreement on the edible vaccine strategy that forms part of the report. I do not believe India should invest in edible vaccines since it will be impossible to keep vaccine bearing fruit separate from ordinary fruits. Mixture with the food chain is inevitable since one bunch of bananas looks like another. It would be even harder to segregate grains. In the US, Starlink corn, which was not allowed as food but only animal feed, was found mixed up with food corn. In the Prodigene case in the US, a GM corn carrying pig vaccine was found mixed up with soybean for human use, showing segregation is not possible even in the highly regulated conditions of US agriculture. India should have a strict policy of allowing the expression of pharmaceutical molecules like vaccines only in non-edible plants.

With respect to regulation, the report has suggested much needed technical competence and transparency. I would have liked to see a greater role for civil society, as is the case in the Philippines and other ASEAN nations. The structure of the regulatory authority would benefit from greater autonomy, demonstrable competence and independence to inspire confidence. The authority should be able to not just assess Biosafety, environmental and long term ecological impact but also other aspects like social and economic impacts, particularly the impact on small farmers, of the introduction of a particular GM crop.

The Task Force report appears to be in favour of biotechnology because many submissions made by formal bodies and experts were overwhelmingly pro biotech.

This article appeared in India Together on 01 Sept 2004 -https://indiatogether.org/btechrept-agriculture/ 

📌 Agenda for the South : Cancun

(from the archives)

The focus for developing countries at the upcoming Cancun WTO Ministerial must be on food and agriculture, says Suman Sahai.

The position held by the EU and the US on agriculture subsidies places enormous hurdles on developing country aspirations of entering markets in the North with agricultural produce of their own. Indeed, progress on agriculture negotiations at the Cancun Ministerial meeting have always seemed difficult. Still, what India should take to Cancun on the food and livelihood front is an aggressive posture on the unfinished Doha agenda, especially where it relates to TRIPS. (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights)

Although the subject of TRIPS and Public Health finds mention in the draft Cancun Ministerial document that has been circulated, there is continuing neglect of the impact of TRIPs on agriculture, food security, farmers’ rights and livelihood security. India should take the position that the rights of farmers and local communities have been reiterated in other conventions, notably the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources (ITPGR) and these must be reflected in the WTO, which must move to harmonise with the international developments.

It is for this reason that India has been advocating the linkage between the CBD and the WTO in its submissions to the TRIPS Review Council. The submission to the TRIPS Council is jointly made by Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Thailand, Peru and Venezuela. In order to protect the rights of local communities and their livelihood base, this group of countries is asking that the TRIPs Agreement be amended to provide for the following in the case of applications for patents relating to biological materials or to traditional knowledge:

1. Disclosure of the source and country of origin of the biological resource and of the traditional knowledge used in the invention
2. Evidence of prior informed consent , and
3. Proof of provision for fair and equitable benefit sharing

On TRIPs, it is unfortunate that some developing countries, including India have chosen not to support the proposal of the Africa Group. The Africa Group is asking for an outright ban on patents on all life forms, a position they have held consistently since 1999. This is a proposal very much in the interest of developing countries since patents on life forms at this early stage of development of key technologies, would strike at self-reliant development in the fields of agriculture and pharmaceuticals.

Developing countries should raise the issue of patents on life forms at Cancun and join other countries and civil society groups in supporting the Africa Group position to oppose patents on all life forms. Having this flexibility is important to give domestic industries a chance to grow and develop their own technologies and become globally competitive. Since the patent system is being introduced for the first time on biological materials, we should give ourselves space to grow, in a patent free environment for some time. Accepting patents on life forms today, will hand over the advantage to the foreign companies who are at present technologically stronger and well versed in the exercise of life form patents.

The draft Cancun declaration simply ignores several injunctions of the Doha declaration.

The Doha Ministerial had provided a mandate to address the outstanding implementation issues on a priority basis by end 2002 but this has not happened yet and there does not seem to be any effort on the part of developed countries to advance this issue. The Doha declaration was explicit. It instructs the Council for TRIPs, in pursuing its work program including the review of article 27.3(b) ( the article under which biological materials are handled) and Article 71.1 ( review in the context of any new developments) , to examine inter alia the relationship between the TRIPs Agreement, the CBD and the protection of traditional knowledge.

It further instructs that in pursuing this work, the TRIPs Council will be guided by Articles 7 and 8 of the TRIPs Agreement. Article 7 provides that IPR protection rather than becoming an instrument of unfair monopoly, should contribute to technology transfer and be mutually advantageous to producers and users of technology in a way that is conducive to social and economic welfare. Article 8 enjoins members of WTO to adopt measures to protect public health and nutrition and promote the public interest in vital sectors like food and medicine.

The draft Cancun declaration simply ignores these injunctions of the Doha declaration and moves ahead with an agenda that benefits the economies of the industrial countries while being largely oblivious to the interests of the developing world.

Another matter, which suffers neglect in the Cancun draft text, is the subject of Geographical Indications (GI), which is of great interest to the economies of agriculture dependent developing countries. The Cancun draft text mentions the need to work on GI for wines and spirits but does not mention expanding the scope of GI protection as the developing countries have been demanding. These countries, which are largely agriculture based, have several specialty products on which they wish to seek the form of IPR called Geographically Indicated Rights. Countries will have their own set of special products for which they will claim GI protection. India for example, is interested in protecting a range of products like Basmati rice, Darjeeling tea, Shahi lychees, Ratnagiri mangoes etc.

Geographical indications identify a product as originating in the territory of a member country or a specific region within it, to which a given quality; reputation or other characteristic of the product can be attributed. Basmati rice for example can be distinctly attributed to the low foothills of the Himalayan region, which used to constitute the greater Punjab. After partition, this region has been divided between India and Pakistan, so geographically indicated rights over Basmati rice belong to India and to Pakistan.

Provided in Articles 22 and 23 of GATT/ TRIPs, GI protection at present has been afforded only to specialty products belonging to the category of wines and spirits, products of the western world. Despite the efforts of developing countries, to expand the scope of the protection in Article 23, to include other products of special relevance to them, the industrialised nations have refused to allow GI protection for anything except the alcoholic beverages. The move to expand the scope of GI is supported by the European Union since it has a number of processed foods of its own, like cheese, ham and other dairy and processed foods for which it seeks exclusive rights under GI.

Paragraph 18 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration states: “With a view to completing the work started in the Council for Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights on the implementation of Article 23.4, we agree to negotiate the establishment of a multilateral system of notification and registration of geographical indications for wines and spirits by the fifth session of the Ministerial Conference. We note that issues related to the extension of the protection of geographical indications provided for in Article 23 to products other than wines and spirits will be addressed in the Council for TRIPs pursuant to paragraph 12 of this Declaration.”

Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Thailand, Peru and Venezuela. must move aggressively at Cancun to garner support for the commitment made in this declaration, to increase the ambit of protection offered under Article 23 of TRIPs. Other countries too have an interest in protecting their (agricultural) products so mobilising support should not be very difficult. The US remains a staunch opponent of enhancing the scope of GI protection, supported by Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of whom are major agriculture exporting countries of products like cheese, ham and other processed meats. The strategy of the group wanting a broader scope of protection under GI should be to isolate the US with the support of the EU and other countries with a common interest.

There is some good news on the coordination front to pressure the EU-US combine. On the eve of the Cancun Ministerial, India along with China and 15 other countries have formed a block to oppose the EU-US pact in agriculture, concerned that the new proposal from EU-US pact could become the basis of negotiations on agriculture. The new group consists of members from Asia and Latin America and includes members of the Cairns Group which are major food exporting nations. This group will reiterate the demand of developing countries to access the agricultural markets of the developed countries by introducing a decrease in domestic and export support for agricultural products in both the US and EU.

This article appeared in India Together on 01 August  2003 -https://indiatogether.org/cancuntrp-agriculture/ 

📍Climate Change Will Spike Wheat Prices

One of the frightening consequences of climate change is rapidly diminishing water availability. Glaciers melting, disturbed and weak monsoons and extreme heat causing drying up of surface water sources like lakes, ponds and tanks will lead to conditions of severe water stress in the coming years.

The impending water scarcity is a growing threat to global food production, particularly for crops that depend on rainfall rather than irrigation. Globally, 80% of the arable land is rainfed, that is unirrigated and dependent on the monsoon. Only 20% of the arable land is irrigated. In India the figures are 45% irrigated land and 55% rainfed land. Severe water stress is projected to result in reduced harvests accompanied by a spike in food prices in the market and hunger among the poorer sections of society. 

In a Danish study done at the Centre for Climate Change in Aarhus University, scientists found a clear correlation between the area affected by severe water scarcity and global wheat prices. They showed that in the years when large areas were under severe water stress, there was a corresponding increase in wheat prices. When there is not enough moisture in the soil during key growing periods, harvests are likely to fail and food prices therefore rise.

Climate model projections suggest that water scarcity will expand as global warming progresses. The Aarhus study predicts that a temperature increase of about 3°C could raise global wheat prices three times relative to 2010. The reason why global wheat prices are particularly linked to severe water stress is because in most regions of the world, the crop is grown under the least favorable soil moisture conditions. Top wheat producers in temperate countries like Russia, US, Canada and Australia are likely to see falling wheat harvests and rising prices in the global market. The problem these countries will face is that they do not have a substitute crop for wheat. 

India however can cope better with the heat and water stress challenges of climate change because it does have a potential alternative or supplement to wheat. It has many varieties of millets that can be trialled as supplementary crops in the wheat season. Millets withstand high heat and water stress much better than wheat, and they can be cultivated in a wide variety of soils. Blessed with a large genetic diversity in millets, India can indeed counter the climate damage to wheat production. I believe targeted research will yield high yielding, nutritious varieties of millets as substitutes/ supplements to the wheat crop. 

📍Conserve Genetic Diversity to cope with Climate Change

India is home to the largest number of cattle in the world. It is estimated that of the roughly 1.6 billion cattle globally, 34 percent are to be found in India. The most important milch breeds (cows bred for milk) in India are the Sahiwal, Gir and Tharparkar. Another high yielder, the Red Sindhi originally from the Sindh-Balochistan area is now facing near extinction. Thanks to its immense genetic wealth of cattle and buffalo, India is the world’s largest milk producer. 

Clearly this unique genetic wealth must be conserved. Indigenous breeds of cattle are hardy and carry unique genetic traits like resistance to diseases and pests; they have a high tolerance to high heat and can ride out water stress. In addition, they can thrive on low input grass based diets. One need not emphasize the value of such traits in a time of global warming which is already bringing high heat and drought conditions as also higher incidence of new diseases. Genetic diversity is one of the most important tools available in the living world, whether plants, animals or microbes, to cope with the growing challenges of climate change.

Given its massive repository of indigenous cattle, accounting for a major share of global cattle genetic diversity, India carries a special responsibility for the conservation of this globally important genetic resource. We need to conserve these genes not just for ourselves but for the entire world. In addition to that, given its stake in securing its pole position in milk production, India should be particularly alert to conserving its cattle and buffalo genetic wealth. But is that the case?

Unfortunately, cattle genetic diversity in India faces severe threats and the continuing loss of unique native gene pools is cause for concern. The reasons are many but chief among them is the indiscriminate cross breeding of native breeds with imported high yielding breeds like Holstein-Friesian and Jersey in order to boost milk production. Little care was taken over the years to separate native cow populations and keep them isolated to conserve their unique genetic identity. This has resulted in the dilution of valuable genetic traits. In rural areas , economic pressures remain significant. Farmers are hence inclined to give in to the market requiring sustained high-volume milk production. This has resulted in lower yielding local breeds being abandoned.

The challenge therefore is to enable high milk production so that cattle farmers can earn better but also ensure that the genetic diversity of cattle breeds is not lost. Both must be balanced for long term sustainability of the sector. 

Effective conservation of cattle genetic diversity would need a mix of live animal management and long-term biological storage. Farmers and pastoralists who actively breed and maintain indigenous and heritage cattle breeds should be supported and their work documented. Conservation areas should be demarcated and animal husbandry practices must be improved. 

Cold gene banks should be established at national and regional levels to store semen, embryos, and somatic tissues. This genetic material will be valuable to override disease out breaks, severe droughts and fodder scarcity. India has already taken steps to establish cold conservation of animal genetic resources. It has set up the National Livestock Gene Bank in Karnal, Haryana where the genetic diversity of indigenous cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, camel, equines, and yaks is conserved. It is however weak on live animal management and needs to do far more there.

📌 INEQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT

There is something deeply unsettling about the way we pursue development in India today. We are increasingly fascinated by what is big and “modern” so airports, expressways and highways, bridges and tunnels are being built whether they are needed or not; the larger the concrete structures, the more impressive the development. It’s another matter that 15 regional airports had to suspend scheduled flights shortly after inauguration due to a lack of takers, high operating costs and being commercially non-viable. Nobody knows if these airports will ever become functional but the taxpayer’s money has gone down the drain.

Development is not seen in drastically reducing the Infant Mortality Rate or making functional, viable Primary Health Centres (PHCs) where a real doctor is available and there are real medicines in stock. Development is also not seen in building toilets for children, specially girls, in rural schools, connecting remote villages by proper link roads nor is it seen in upgrading the quality of education in schools and colleges in small towns and villages. Making available good quality health and education which should be the first priority of any government does not fit into the “Visible Symbols of Progress” template. And perversely, the government has shut down 94,000 government schools where poor children could study.

The Union Budget numbers tell you what kind of development is happening. Between 2013-14 and 2026-27, the share of education in total Union expenditure has fallen from about 4.6% in 13-14 to 2.5% in 26-27, while health remained stagnant at 2% in 13-14 and 26-27. In the same period, the allocation for roads and highways has risen from about 1.8 per cent in 13-14 to nearly 5.8 per cent in 26-27, almost trebled.

This is not an argument against highways and airports where they are needed. But what kind of development are we aspiring to if cities receive preferential treatment and the hinterland and its people are so neglected that they are forced to migrate in order to pursue some kind of healthcare and education. This is not development, this is discrimination.

📍BIOCHAR CAN BRING BACK NUTRITION IN OUR FOOD

There have been quite a few reports in recent times showing that the nutritive value of our food has been declining steadily. It would appear that in just one lifetime, the vital complex mineral mix our bodies need is now just half of what it used to be. So the spinach or carrots that we eat today have only half the nutrition of what our parents or grandparents got from their spinach and carrots.

The reason is that our soil and the nutrients in it are only a fraction of what there was earlier. What we did was to abandon the biological resilience inherent in our soils and opted for chemicals like urea to add nutrients. With this, the living ecosystem of bugs, worms and bacteria that lived in the soil and maintained its nutrition, went into decline. So how do we rectify this situation? An important part of the solution lies in the age old practice of Biochar.

Biochar, literally translated as charcoal or coal made from biological materials was known to ancient agricultural societies as far back as 2,500 years ago. Indigenous communities across the world, from the Amazon Basin to sub-Saharan Africa, have historically used biochar as a soil amendment to improve fertility and increase crop yields. These farming communities improved their weak acidic soils by adding a mixture of charcoal and biomass to it . This rich soil was self-generating and is still found to be fertile after all these years. A significant benefit from biochar use is its beneficial impact on soil structure. The addition of biochar increases soil porosity, creating spaces that enhance water infiltration and retention. This property is particularly beneficial in arid and semi-arid regions where water availability is limited, as it helps plants access water more efficiently during dry periods. 

When biochar is incorporated into the soil, it enhances the soil’s moisture-holding capacity and promotes microbial activity. This in turn produces compounds which increase crop yields. Studies have shown that soils amended with biochar exhibit higher levels of essential nutrients, leading to materially higher crop yields and more nutritious agricultural produce. So our spinach and carrots would become nutritious as before .

Other benefits of biochar

Biochar production has the potential to profitably deal with crop waste and to create a circular farming system. In Louisiana for instance, a 150 year old sugarcane farm is setting up biochar production as a solution to its multi-million ton piles of sugarcane waste/bagasse. Similarly, in Kenya, sugar producers are moving toward creating biochar from their massive piles of bagasse. This biochar is sold to farmers as a soil improvement package.

Farmers in India should be encouraged and supported to use this approach to deal with crop residue every season. Instead of burning this crop residue and adding to the already horrific air pollution, it can be used to produce biochar, a profitable revenue generating product to increase the fertility of their own farms and sell to other farmers.